{"id":608,"date":"2013-10-10T19:25:51","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T19:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2013-10-10T19:50:54","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T19:50:54","slug":"the-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"The Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reading was a bust, by standard measure. Two couples, one of whom are good friends (one are? implied plural? Lazy, lazy\u2026), my girlfriend, some folks who dropped by. Rebecca Singer, owner of Dudley’s was so graciously apologetic: “Fall Festival, a beautiful day to be outside, hard to find parking,” etc. I wanted to apologize to her<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Somehow, I am not devastated. My reaction like that I had with the “friend of a friend who knows somebody,” who was surprised when I told him I \u00a0still believed in the value of “Chalice,” despite rejection by agents and publishers.\u00a0To that, I add a nearly empty book store on a beautiful Fall Sunday.<\/p>\n

Have an impact on me? Of course. A bit of the doldrums, wind absent from my sails. Plus a fever on Monday, full on wet-sniffle-snuffle-hacking-cough cold on Tuesday, slow recovery on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

And then, there was today. Someone I don’t know, but know of, posted a comment on this blog stating her gratitude for “Chalice.” Someone squarely in the demographic I felt would receive what I was trying to communicate.<\/p>\n

That one comment made more of a difference to me than an empty book store, rejection by agents and publishers.<\/p>\n

Because I wrote “Chalice” for her<\/em>. And her friends. Those she went to college with, or hung out with in high school, who are inspired by her<\/em> passions, wherever those take her.\u00a0Chalice<\/em> is not for everyone. But she\u00a0<\/em>and her brothers\u00a0and sisters are out there.\u00a0She<\/em>\u00a0is the one who makes the effort worthwhile, the rejections bearable.\u00a0She\u00a0<\/em>is my audience,\u00a0she<\/em>\u00a0is the one I was trying to reach.<\/p>\n

A breeze is picking up, sails inhale, losing slack. We have a video of the reading, which will be posted sometime soon. A book club may take up the book, I’ve been asked if I would speak to them (of course). Sales inch upward.<\/p>\n

Off we go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reading was a bust, by standard measure. Two couples, one of whom are good friends (one are? implied plural? Lazy, lazy\u2026), my girlfriend, some folks who dropped by. Rebecca Singer, owner of Dudley’s was so graciously apologetic: “Fall Festival, a beautiful day to be outside, hard to find parking,” etc. I wanted to apologize to her<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Somehow, I am not devastated. My reaction like that I had with the “friend of a friend who knows somebody,” who was surprised when I told him I \u00a0still believed in the value of “Chalice,” despite rejection by agents and publishers.\u00a0To that, I \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,176,332,17,33,29,36],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-bookstores","tag-chalice","tag-novel","tag-publish","tag-readers","tag-writer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-9O","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}